-----Race: Rinkono
-----Gender: Male
-----Age: 16
-----Personality: Kaerian is rather shy, especially when around strangers. He tends to be very quiet, and slips away when he thinks no one is looking. For the record, he is nowhere near as stealthy as he thinks he is. Still, the fact that he was small for his race and almost sickly thin made it easy for him to move around unnoticed by many. Since he really can't defend himself well, that's more a blessing than anything. For all that he is shy, though, because when he had been living with his family every one of his ideas and thoughts were crushed, it is not his normal state of being. Underneath that shy exterior lies a steely mind, cold calculation, and a the fire of s warrior. Even if he didn't have the body of one.
Kaerian is smart. Very smart. Smart enough that he could probably outwit generals and pirates and anyone else if he put his mind to it. Mostly he thinks in terms of battle and warfare, judging the qualities of a person by how well they would hold up in any number of possible scenarios that he keeps running in his head. Even though he is perfectly aware of the fact that in the majority of the scenarios he runs as a possible occurrence, he will not win. In most, he will not survive. He knows his own weakness and doesn't make any apologies for it. It just is, just like he is smarter than almost everyone he has ever met.
He is not arrogant, nor does he phrase his ideas or concepts in a way that is condescending. Most of the time. Sometimes, he can't help it because they people he is around are just idiotic and need to be spoken down too. But he tries to keep what he is saying and how he behaves on par with whomever he was with. Kaer is fully aware of what it is like to be excluded or ignored, so he is always very careful not to do those things.
Not that it is appreciated very often, because who really cares what a runt like him thinks?
Still, his intelligence is what he prizes above all other things. But, he doesn't flaunt it, not anymore. After years of being ignored or laughed at, even though he was right, he figured it's best to seem like he is of average intelligence. It always makes him a little edgy, because it skirts the first of the tenants of the Rikono Code. "You will be honest and just in all business and personal relationships." But it's not like he's lying just... letting people think what they want. If he was asked flat out if he was really smart, he would be honest, of course. However, that's not a thing that comes up in regular conversations.
Of course, another tenant of the Code always sort of stuck in his craw. " You will only take a challenge you believe you can take on. Brain over brawn, and logic over pride." Not as it related to him, but as to how others treated him. He knew it was just because he was young and untested, but it still made something deep within him furious.
Still, he was in no position to change how he was treated, not yet. That's why he was going to prove himself... somehow. Kaerian had already taken the first few steps by leaving home, but that wouldn't be enough.
There were vague notions of a plan that would make people listen and respect him, but most of those involved real world events that he had no control over. Like war.
Kaer knew he would find his way, though, given the right opportunities, but until then, he was going to wander the world, figure out it's races, and use his intelligence to sell his services as a scribe or something to make money. He just need one chance to prove himself. That's all he wanted. One chance.
-----History: Born to a Rikono General and a housewife, he was born early, small, and sickly. It was never said, but Kaer knew he was a disappointment to them. He spent a lot of his time growing up reading, because that was all he could really do. He couldn't play with the other kids, couldn't train with his father, or even keep up with his older halfbreed brother. Of course, his older brother was gone by the time he was nine, so there wasn't much opportunity anyway. As a child, he felt that his mother even preferred the halfbreed to him, because he was strong and Kaer wasn't, because he was healthy and Kaer wasn't, because if he had been a pureblood Rikono, he would be celebrated for his strengths and skills, and Kaer... was overlooked and ignored.
His parents when on to have another child, who was practically perfect by Rikono standards. and Kaerian felt lost.
So he studied whatever he could get his hands on. Most of what he had available to him at first was just the basic primers, and he flew through them, refusing to even look at them or any of what his tutors wanted him to see. Kaer felt like it was a waste of his time. Luckily, once his mother was busy with the new baby, he was left on his own a large portion of the time, and he could look into what he really wanted too. Military history.
Kaer started with what he could find around the house, in his father's study where he wasn't supposed to go but did anyway. He read through histories and battle plans and solider specifications, making notes on loose paper with a colored stick of wax. He was only 7 after all, and his mother wouldn't let him have anything else.
In only a few months, though, he had exhausted everything in his house and had started making corrections to things in the books. He would cross things out and write "this won't work, do this instead" and scribble mostly complete modifications that would totally work better, if they were ever implemented. Since most of them were notations on battles long past, it was likely none of them were ever noticed.
Kaerian was nine when his father left his work out one weekend that he was home and Kaer got a hold of it. Fortunately, though, his older half-brother was causing tension between his parents, so no one noticed that Kaerian took his fathers work and started to correct it.
Of course, the didn't notice right away. It wasn't until his father had left for work that someone finally noticed. His father came storming back home after his day had barely started, startling everyone. After about a hour of yelling, with Kaerian just sinking down in his chair, wishing that it would swallow him whole and his older half brother defending him, his father stormed back out to work.
Later that day, his older half brother, Vaixen, left and never came back.
Later that week, Kaer found out that the plan that his father and the other general's had implemented had failed, just like Kaer said it would, and cost the lives of many soldiers.
Kaerian was brought into a dark room, where a bunch of strange adults asked him a bunch of strange questions. They would have asked more, probably kept him there forever, but the stress of being in a new place, a hostile place, where everyone was telling him how wrong he was, took it's toll, and he fell ill. Fainted right in the middle of the proceedings.
When he woke up, they made him promise not to look at his father's work without permission ever again. And he made that promise, though it pained him to do so.
It took him a while to recover, and he spent that time in bed, or on his floor, reading. Always reading.
Time passed, and he got older, but not better. He was still weak and even his little brother surpassed him at even the most simple of physical tasks. Even though he had pretty strong Tiya for his race, it was purely defensive and was too hard on his body most of the time, so he couldn't use it very often without suffering from extreme fatigue.
Mentally, though, he outstripped them all, and he knew it. It was just that, after what had happened with his father, he was reluctant to say anything, and even more so to put quill to parchment and record his thoughts.
Even though it was hard for him to do, he tried anyway. Every time he noticed something off about a military venture, or training proceeding, or even far reaching events, he would speak up. He would try to get them to listen to him, fingers nervously playing with the ends of his long hair and ears pinned back, waiting for what he was sure was going to happen. And every time it did. He was scolded for looking into things that weren't his concern and his changes and predictions were ignored. Even though it always happened the way he said it would. Always.
Kaerian was never wrong and it bothered him so much that no one would listen to him.
He knew it was because he was physically weak, because he couldn't run for more than a half mile without falling over, wheezing, and he couldn't fight to save his life. They must have thought that because he couldn't do the things he was telling them to do, that he couldn't possibly know what he was talking about.
But he did. And every time his warnings were ignored, and people were hurt because of it, he got a little more fed up.
By the time of his sixteenth birthday, he'd had enough. In the wee hours of the morning, Kaerian packed a bag, took what money he had, and left on foot. If he was ever going to get anyone to listen to him, he had to prove himself first.
Now he just had to figure out how.
-----Occupation: Kaerian doesn't really have an occupation, or know what it would be like to have one. Sure, he's smart, but he lacks real world experience. Mostly, he offers his services as a scribe or anything similar when he starts running out of money. Ideally, he would be in a position where he could use his tactical intelligence for the greater good, but he knew he was a long way off from being able to do that.
-----Appearence: Kaerian is small by anyone's standards, only standing around 5'2. If he stretches. He is pale and usually has bags under his eyes. Not from lack of sleep, but they are just naturally there all the time. It's probably because his immune system has more in common with the Machka than with his own race. Kaerian is most definitely what you would call the runt of the litter.
He has long brown hair with a tuft of black in front. Normally, he has it pulled over one shoulder, because he messes with it when he is nervous about something, and given his general disposition, he is usually nervous about something. Again, this is only his current state. He will regain that confidence in himself after trials.
Kaer has very pale blue eyes, and soft features, giving him the look of someone young and vulnerable, which don't get me wrong, he really is, but less than someone would imagine. Since his strengths are more mental that physical, he doesn't have the body or the strength that others of his race have. He is small and frail, and the point of that is that he knows it so he is always trying to come up with new ways to do things that don't rely on strength that he doesn't have.
Kaerian has large, fluffy ears that echo his hair colors, so his hearing is pretty good, a sight better than others who didn't actually know how to listen. In everyday wear, he prefers grays or other neutral colors. It makes him stand out less, which is what he wants. Loose shirts and rugged pants make most of his wardrobe, and there is very little variety there. A pair of strong boots and a large bag is pretty much all he has, right now. He keeps a few pairs of shirts and pants in the bag, along with everything else he thought to bring with him. Wasn't much, mostly some food that would rot and some money. Kaerian was setting out on his adventure with a little more than just the shirt on his back, but not much.
-----Location: Current whereabouts unknown, but he did leave from Barearav, since that is the city his family calls home.
-----Abilities: Flat out, Kaerian is a genius, no questions about that. There isn't a problem in the world that he couldn't solve, provided he had enough data to do so. Since most of educational sources were military, he saw the world through war-colored glasses, always running scenarios in his head both for him and for those he meets, judging people competent or not after a single glance. There are some disadvantages as well, weakness detailed in the next section, but he is scary-smart, and he remembers.
Since his physical stature leaves a lot to be desired, his family never trained him in that way. So, he missed out on everything but the basic basics, and even with that, he had a lot of trouble. He has some simple survival knowledge, but he didn't really learn it from his tutors, and he has the basics of defense down, but there really isn't a point for him to use those defensive maneuvers. He just doesn't have the strength to back any of it up. Which was just fine by him. He had his own plans anyway.
Knowing he couldn't rely on his physical self for much of anything, he relied on his mental capacity. There was rarely a situation he couldn't think his way around. Now, whether or not he could actually do anything about it once he figured it out was another matter. Sometimes, the only way out was through, or that's what they said. And without the physical prowess that most of the other races possessed, he knew he was at a large disadvantage. He didn't let it get him down, though.
After all, he could out-think, out-maneuver, and out-smart just about everyone. And that, that, made him dangerous.
It wasn't something that you'd think, looking at him, but his mind, cold and calculating, made him someone that should be taken seriously. Years of being ignored and his ideas thrown back in his face took their toll, of course, so he was shy and hesitant to use his abilities in almost anyway, because he always thought that the past would repeat itself. And he didn't think he could deal with the rejection over and over again. But in the back of his mind, there is a part of him that is cold, that watches everything with calculating eyes and sees how he could do it better. So. Maybe he should?
-----Weaknesses: Physical weakness aside, because as stated, he is very weak and very sickly, and that is something that probably isn't going to change much.
He can barely hold a sword, let alone use it. The best he can do is use a belt knife, the same one he uses for food and everyday things, as a defensive weapon. Kaer can't hunt for food, but he can set traps for animals that he wouldn't be able to track down on his own. First and foremost, his only real defense is his wits, and that doesn't always hold up.
On top of the physical stuff, he does have mental weaknesses as well. Mostly it comes from being isolated. Kaer has a lot of knowledge, but most of it has been gleaned from books and reports, not from first hand experience. So, there is a large gap in his knowledge: people. Personal interactions, emotions, everyday stuff that everyone else understands, he tends to... miss. It just doesn't register, and it's because he has had little to no interaction with people outside his family, and none whatsoever with any of the other races, so it is a very big weakness, the hole in his knowledge, because he knows that people are driven, by a general rule, by their emotions and personal experiences. Only time and experience, though, will rectify that. It's one of the reasons he set out from home to 'prove' himself, to increase his knowledge of other races and their motivations so he could better predict how they would react in any one of the hundreds of possible scenarios he comes up with on a daily basis.
